Facebook Etiquette

Someone (let’s call her Rachel*) asked for my advice about Facebook friending etiquette the other day. We are both friends in the real world (an old Uni pal) and we are also friends of Facebook. Rachel, who is an internet newbie who stays mainly on Facebook, had received a “friend” request from a business colleague of her husband’s.

Rachel told me, “I don’t know what to do. I use Facebook for my close friends and family and this lady is nice but she’s - well - a business contact. If I accepted, she’d be the only non- “real friend”. And I use Facebook for, you know, personal stuff that only friends and family would be interested in. But I don’t want to be rude.”

This is a dilemma I’ve come across a number of times.

With people you don’t know at all who just came across your profile on Facebook and try to “friend” you because their aim is to reach, like, wow, 1,000 friends, man - you just ignore them. That’s easy.

With friends who are your real-life friends ie you know them in the real world and they actually are your friends in that sense of the word, that’s easy too - you accept them.

It’s these in-betweeny people who are your acquaintances or business colleagues or someone you met at a party and spoke to for five minutes - what do you do about them? For me, my Facebook profile and all my public online presences are part of who I am in public and relate to my profession as a writer and social media specialist so if the person fits with that public me, then I accept them. For private personal connections, I maintain private spaces eg for family photos and videos.

For Rachel and many others like her, her presence online is not part of a public, business-related presence and she’s just having some fun with friends and family. This is where privacy settings and more “un-friendly” conduct becomes necessary - and is quite legitimate. I suggested that she explain to her husband’s business colleague that she uses Facebook for family and close, personal friends only and if she’s worried about the colleague taking it the wrong way, to make sure she knows that Rachel can be friendly in other ways that work better for the nature of the business relationship.

As we live more and more of our lives online, privacy issues are going to become more and more relevant. At the moment, there are no rules of etiquette for social interactions online and generally, what we’ve been using in the real world works too online. But new etiquette is bound to evolve as new issues and circumstances arise. In a case like this, it’s a matter for Rachel to find a way to best negotiate who she friends and what personal information she shares online - but it’s also a matter for the business colleague to respect the privacy of the person who does not wish to “friend” her online (although Rachel may be comfortable meeting her from time to time in the appropriate business setting).

So, Rachel didn’t accept the friend request. What do you think? Would you have friended this colleague anyway?

*not her real name

Photo: thanks to jennybento from flickr.com (CCL)